The invention relates to a shelf carrier comprising an insertion pot, which has a T-shaped suspension opening on a side wall, the T-shaped suspension opening being formed by a longitudinal slit extending parallel to the pot axis and by a transverse slit extending perpendicularly thereto, the longitudinal slit being open at the end thereof facing away from the transverse slit, and to a shelf arrangement comprising a shelf, the shelf having a shelf carrier on both sides of each shelf end.
Shelf carriers of this type are used for suspending shelves, such as e.g. shelves for bookcases, between two side walls of a bookcase. Towards this end, four shelf carriers are inserted into corresponding receptacles on the lower side of the shelves and the shelf carriers of the shelf are subsequently suspended on pins or bolts of the side walls of the bookcase.
Prior art firstly discloses simple shelf carriers with suspension slits which are open on one side and are inserted on both sides into the lower side of the shelf at the front and rear shelf ends. However, this simple shelf carrier is disadvantageous in that, when the front shelf end is subjected to a relatively high load, the rear shelf carrier and therefore the rear shelf end might be lifted off from the associated rear mounting bolt with the consequence that the shelf is tilted.
In order to prevent tilting of the suspended shelf, it is known in the art to use different shelf carriers for the front and rear shelf ends. While the two front shelf carriers (i.e. the shelf carriers disposed most proximate to a bookcase rear wall) still have only a suspension slit that is open on one side for receiving the bolt heads, the two rear shelf carriers (i.e. the shelf carriers that are most proximate to the visible shelf front edge) have a T-shaped suspension opening which is formed by the suspension slit (longitudinal slit) that is open on one side, and by a transverse slit extending to both sides relative thereto. The shelf is initially suspended with its rear shelf carriers, to be more precise, with its longitudinal slits, in the rear mounting bolts and is subsequently shifted to the back, with the consequence that the rear mounting bolt is then in the transverse slit and the rear shelf carrier is secured on the rear mounting bolt in a direction opposite to the suspension direction. The rear mounting bolt forms the axis of rotation about which the shelf is then pivoted with its front shelf end until the longitudinal slit of the front shelf carrier is suspended in the front mounting bolt. The rear shelf carrier that is secured in a direction opposite to the suspension direction ensures that the suspended shelf is mounted in such a fashion that it cannot tilt. However, different front and rear shelf carriers have the following disadvantages:                During insertion of the shelf carriers, one must always make sure that the rear shelf carriers are inserted into the recesses of the shelf at the rear shelf end and the front shelf carriers are inserted into the recesses of the shelf at the front shelf end. Otherwise, the shelf either cannot be suspended or can be shifted forwards and backwards in the suspended state. Removal of incorrectly inserted shelf carriers accompanied by re-insertion is demanding, time-consuming and inconvenient.        The production or manufacture of two different shelf carriers and supervision to make sure that always the correct pairs of front and rear shelf carriers are provided with each delivered unit are also time-consuming and expensive.        